


Didn’t you like it better when you were the worst thing that ever happened to me?

by darkcomedylateshow



Series: didn't you like it better when... [2]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M, ummmm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:48:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22604989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkcomedylateshow/pseuds/darkcomedylateshow
Summary: i know this hardly resembles the show Succession anymore but i had an itch that could only be scratched by Sad Domestic Tom and Greg. thanks everyoneplaylist|tumblr
Relationships: Greg Hirsch/Tom Wambsgans
Series: didn't you like it better when... [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627117
Comments: 17
Kudos: 234





	Didn’t you like it better when you were the worst thing that ever happened to me?

“You can’t tell anyone we did this,” Tom says, barely containing his laughter, as he punches in the gate-code. 

“I don’t tell anyone anything,” says Greg, more defensive than necessary — killing the vibe much, Greg? But to be fair, this is absolutely the most insane thing they’ve ever done, sneaking away to this place on the beach for the weekend, family property, the kind they buy and never touch and offer to “friends” (partners and clients) to “visit” (party in.) 

Greg doesn’t want to be here at all. He’s tired, and he doesn’t like Long Island, or this surreptitious-lovers schtick they’ve been doing for almost a year, lots of hushed voices and late-night texting and secrets. But his opinion is irrelevant right now. 

“Look at us,” says Tom, something he’s started to say often, as he goes to look for wine glasses. “Slumming it.” He looks thrilled to be getting away with this, to be back on Roy property. “Did you remember to pack everything?” 

Greg assumed they’d fall into their usual rhythms once they arrived, but something is off. They’ve hit this strange transitional phase. Tom is out of the picture; Greg is still lurking in the wings, and doing quite well, really, considering everything. Their life together is both unfamiliar and painfully recognizable: sharing space, nights in different apartments, walking Mondale, arguing at dinner, comfortable silence, disappointed silence, a combination of the two. This is a deviation. 

(He’d called his mom a few weeks ago and said Mom, have you ever known something was wrong but you didn’t want to hurt or be hurt and you just care? so much? and she said, Greg, honey, you’re not making any sense.)

It is palpably tense as Greg waits in the kitchen, hand on the marble. This place is nice, he thinks, but he’s seen better. He could maybe afford this house, and even though he doesn’t want it, he entertains the idea of being there on the beach, with two bedrooms and a dog and a full size kitchen and a normal life with Tom, a quiet life; no, wait, he thinks, oh no, wait— 

* * *

Dinner Conversations, Volume 73:

They try not to talk about family. Except sometimes Tom’s parents come up; he loves them both, he explains, but he hasn’t even told them about what’s going on. They would be shattered, he says. Shattered over what, Greg thinks? Just kidding, he knows. 

“Shiv says,” he starts, then cringes, but keeps going — “Shiv told me once, her mom told her your dad was, that he was, you know —“

“What, Jewish?”

“No, gay.”

“I was ... I was trying to make a joke.” 

“Oh.” Tom almost laughs, but decides not to force it. “But I mean — is it true, that—”

“Um. Yes. It is true,” he says, with an uncomfortable, _ya got me_ air. It reminds Tom of when they first met. Greg is thinking he hasn’t seen Tom this uncomfortable in months. 

“Well, tell me about that,” Tom says, finally. 

“Are you asking me because you’re actually curious, or like, because you’re encouraging me to be open, or what?” 

“I don’t know. I was just asking. You don’t have to. Jesus, Greg.” 

“Sorry,” Greg says, but he’s not sorry. “It’s not — I just didn’t know this was in the cards tonight?”

“I’m sorry,” Tom says, also not sorry. “Forget it.”

They don’t. Greg drinks four Negronis and nearly falls into the bathroom. Once he was nineteen and he and his friends ended up at the shitty casino-slash horse tracks the next town over, and someone offered him Quaaludes, and he sat there in the stands, heavily sedated, and actually witnessed a racehorse piss. This is sort of like that except only partially on the nice tiled floor, one of those private stalls with a scented diffuser, and he looks like one of those guys in a forties-drunk movie, unshaven, slack-jawed, big patches of sweat under his arms. He slaps himself across the face — the attendant hears a muffled “ow, shit” — why did he think that would help? Then he digs his vape pen out of his pocket and takes too big a drag — a mistake because now he’s in a coma, gripping the edge of the sink, but there is some clarity in the fog. What does Tom even want from him? What is he supposed to say? Yes, my father was miserable and gay and married, once? Just like you, once? 

The rest of dinner is mostly quiet. In the car home he leans heavily on Tom’s shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to mind. The sky is purple and smoggy, the color of light pollution. 

* * *

They get into a fight the next week — a real fight, Tom thinks! Not just pointed statements before a blowjob or a complete emotional breakdown but a real blood fight, and even better, they’re on Central Park West at brunch hour, surrounded by strangers. And yes they had been drinking, and no, it’s not about family, it’s not even fun, it’s: 

“We are not ‘a couple,’” says Tom. Also, their voices have been raised for the last block or so, and people are looking, wondering if they’re rehearsing a play about the world’s most emotionally stunted couple, and Tom’s face is red and twisted and he knows he looks like a fucking mess. 

“Okay, but we are.” Greg is trying desperately to pull up Maps through his smart gloves that don’t work, just so he can look at something else. “We have, like, a whole relationship, Tom — I know you don’t wanna call it that, but just in terms of how much time we —“

“That’s like saying — like if —“ nope, Tom decides, he’s too drunk for a snappy analogy. “You know what, I’m not even justifying that with a response.” 

But then Tom starts to think about all the ways they are very much together. They eat and sleep together and have done things that both turn his stomach and make his neck hot thinking about. He has seen Greg’s laundry on his floor. He’s held his sweaty, nervous hand tightly against himself. What is he so afraid of? Why does he still have the faint urge to step down an elevator shaft?

“So you don’t want to do this,” Greg says, so raw-sounding it surprises him. 

“No, of course I do.” 

“Then what the hell?”

“I shouldn’t. It’s not safe for either of us. I shouldn’t be around you.” 

“You don’t have to do that, though.”

“But I do,” he says, and the both of them seem to shrink. “Of course I want this, Greg, you’re—I mean you’re so nice to me, for some reason, and the sex is good, it is so good, but we need to think about our lives. You need to think about what you’re doing.”

Thank you Tom, that’s very brave. Thank you Tom, very cool. Greg balls his hands up in the pockets of his windbreaker. 

“I’m not that nice to you,” he says, finally. “So.” 

Tom has no movie-romance illusions about this, and never has. This is high drama: it’s Shakespeare with a slasher ending, it’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, it’s six hours of Nathan Lane dying. People don’t behave ordinarily, react realistically. They hurl water bottles and cower in corners. They make huge, life-eating mistakes. 

But then the two of them walk home and sober up; one of them apologizes, and things return to normal. Tom realizes he has opened up a drawerful of clichés: We had a fight. It was only a fight. I’m not leaving you. He feels a proverbial shadow creeping in — warnings of things to come, like hearing feet shuffling backstage. 

* * *

For several weeks he cannot come. It happens to Tom sometimes, these weird bursts of anhedonia where he feels indifferent to everything. Greg’s a trouper, as always, and though he claims it doesn’t matter, Tom wants to, like wants to wants to, and so they spend a good amount of time in bed, fighting wrist cramps, trying to focus. 

“Do you want this?” Greg asks, because he still has no idea. 

“Sweet mother of fuck. Nothing is happening. I’m sorry, Greg, it’s not, you’re really —” beautiful? doing your best? He does look beautiful like this, looking down at him, hair slicked back with sweat; all the raw naked parts, the clay that makes up Greg the person. Weird.

“It’s fine,” Greg says, cutting off whatever he was thinking, “it’s totally okay. We can stop. Or we can do something else — I could go down on you or, or we could…I could…”

Tom waits, genuinely wondering if he’s capable of saying it. “You could what?” 

“Never mind,” Greg says, apparently too flustered to complete a sentence, “never mind, I just want you to feel. Good. Or if you don’t want that…” 

“What’s wrong with you?” Tom asks, so lovingly it makes both of them want to die. 

“What’s wrong with _you_?” 

“Is this not fun anymore?” Tom says, genuine but glinting. “Do you want something a little more cathartic?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

“We’ve never really had the what-stuff-do-you-like talk, but you're obviously into some freaky shit.” He’s flopped back on the bed, Greg staring down at him, and he feels like being mean. “I know you, and I know you must be _some_ kind of masochist, if you’re still here trying to—“ 

“Stop talking,” Greg says, half-serious. 

“Oh, come on. Or would you rather be the one doing the hurting?"

“I said stop talking,” 

“Come on. You want me to talk. You want me to hold your hand through everything.”

“No. No, you don’t know what I want. I should...” Deep breath. “I should gag you.”

“Yes,” Tom says, quiet and dark and still just a little mocking, “yes, Greg, you should.”

Greg looks at him like, fine, because he’s dared himself, and backing down is punishable by death. He goes to the drawer and finds a tie he hates, arsenic green with silver thread, rolling it up tightly. He thinks he saw this in a porn once, maybe. Or maybe he thought it up himself. That’s the thing. He is so, so desperate for something — anything — but he just takes what he’s given, just waits around. Except right now.

He runs his hand over Tom's head, messes up his neatly-clipped hair. He cups his jaw, trying to get him to relax, but he’s biting down on that tie like it’s going to criminally indict him if he lets go. By the time he touches his neck Tom is already shuddering. This is so weird, Greg thinks. All this time and it’s still so weird.

“Here?” he asks, gentle, as he drags his hand down. Tom’s eyes are burning. Greg thinks of all the times he himself was angry, so angry it would make him shake, and yet he said nothing. 

Tom can see him enjoying this, even though he’d never say it outright. All the bleariness and sweatiness drains away, and he's painfully aware of just Greg, touching him with a strange detachment, half-hard through his boxers. Whenever they’re in bed, Tom is coarse, talkative, needy; now he has to remember to breathe, and Greg has to remember to not just stand there. 

“I guess I’m doing all the work,” Greg says, “but, that’s not really news.” 

Tom wonders: Are they even having sex anymore? It’s closer to some kind of meditation. Greg’s hand cradles the back of his head. He’s staring down at Tom, who’s not looking back. He is beautiful, and it is silent.

He tries to say something through the tie like _Greg you delicate flower, I knew you weren’t up for this_ or _why are you giving me this junior-prom handjob_ , but he sounds so stupid and by some total fluke, his body seizes, and he has a kind of shallow, half-earned orgasm, fleeting but intense. Greg yanks the tie out of his mouth and Tom starts laughing, harder than he’s laughed in God knows how long, tears stinging his eyes. 

“Oh God,” says Tom, wiping his face, sniffing. Greg’s shoulders and back are pink and scratched, by him, he supposes. They both feel underwhelmed and proud of themselves. 

When Greg leaves the room Tom picks up the tie from the bedspread. It’s now officially gross, and he’s ruined the stitching with his teeth. His hard palette feels dry, like it’s still full of silk. Later, he gives the spittley tie to the dog, who destroys it. 

* * *

They’re lying in bed a few hours later, still wide awake, when Tom asks: “Do you _want_ to be a couple?” 

“I don’t know,” Greg says, very quiet.

“That’s what I thought,” Tom says, strangely calm. “Didn’t you like it better when you were the worst thing that ever happened to me?”

“No, no I didn’t.” Tom can’t see Greg's face, but his voice is wavering. “I don’t know if I ever liked this.” 

Greg turns around. Suddenly there’s a different person in his bed. Suddenly it’s the Tom he knew a year ago, tight shoulders, cold smile, barking laugh. Greg’s stomach twists. 

“How dare you fucking pretend you’re not in love with me,” he says — “how dare you!” 

“That’s not fair,” says Greg. 

“You’re pathetic.” 

“ _You’re_ pathetic," Greg says, kicking up the same argument they’ve had again and again. “Even if I am, you know what? You’re right, it’s not safe. I know you think it’s safer to be like this, but it’s not, not really, and you’re not like me. You’re not safe.”

He dresses himself and leaves in an absolute dither, not cold-angry, just panic-angry. Tom stands there in his underwear a while, then sinks to the bed. He’ll be back. He will. 

* * *

Greg should be in bed, asleep. It’s freezing out. But instead he’s in a 24-hour Starbucks and that Dylan song is playing, about how he wishes just one time, you could stand inside his shoes, and just for that one moment I could be you; you’d know what a drag it is to see you. But he’s fine, actually! He sits there and thinks about the weird little house in the Hamptons, the unspoken and unfulfilled implication of making love on the freezing beach, the times they kissed, when Tom first kissed him, the kind of making out that left a trail of things knocked over, coats flying from pegs, photo frames and office supplies upturned, how intimacy always went hand in hand with destruction.

Greg doesn’t even think he’ll come back home, but at some point they start to mop the floors, so he leaves. It’s good to know that if he’s ever out on his ass, because of money or Tom or otherwise, he can always hang out here, and they’re much nicer about it than the Penn Station McDonalds people. 

He’ll always remember Tom the way he looks right now. He’s sitting in the living room, his clothes rumpled. The carpet needs to be vacuumed. Tom steeples his hands together, rubs at his face. 

“I love you,” he says. 

“I know,” Greg says. 

“Don’t fucking Han Solo me, Greg, just tell me if you’re in on this.” 

“Yes,” he says, “that’s what I’ve been _trying to tell you_ , but you won't—”

“Move in with me, then,” Tom says. 

“I like my place.”

“You don’t have to get rid of it,” he says, already exasperated with him again. “We’ll find somewhere.” When Greg says nothing, Tom looks at him in that way that puts a crack in his chest, makes his stomach all flipped. 

“I can’t be alone,” he says.

Greg fidgets a while, then finally: “Me neither."

He puts down his things and comes towards him, slowly. Tom leans forward in the chair and clings to his waist like a child. 

"This is good,” he says, with his face pressed into his shirt, “this is going to be really good. This is a whole new chapter, Greg. This is great.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i know this hardly resembles the show Succession anymore but i had an itch that could only be scratched by Sad Domestic Tom and Greg. thanks everyone
> 
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3abEZcWsNMNsKnBeQUYSZf?si=BgJsDCJCTm60nFMpdt4xSg) | [tumblr](http://xianezone.tumblr.com/)


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